Marked for Guto
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match4 Jan 2027
Pro Vercelli refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Pro Vercelli will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Elijah Scott is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Achraf el Bouchataoui and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match2 Jan 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match2 Jan 2027
Three points for Pro Vercelli, 3‑1 the final word against Trento in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pro Vercelli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ángel Viotti in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pro Vercelli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Pro Vercelli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Achraf el Bouchataoui is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leonardo Piran, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Lecco in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market16 Nov 2026
The name of Dean Huiberts keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Pro Vercelli say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Fady Khatir knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pro Vercelli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A season on the outside for Junior Ajayi
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Pro Vercelli has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
7 appearances away from home and 3 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match4 Nov 2026
The small margins put Pro Vercelli out
Out, 2‑2 to Torino, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match7 Nov 2026
4 matches without a win for Pro Vercelli
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pro Vercelli are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Dean Huiberts was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Achraf el Bouchataoui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match7 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
In brief
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Match
Pro Vercelli rescue it on 122 minutes
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Player ratings
The kick that got away from Guto
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
33 days out for Ángel Viotti after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pro Vercelli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Gianmario Comi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Fady Khatir falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Pro Vercelli are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Mattia Rutigliano
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Vincenzo Paro chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Leonardo Piran knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leonardo Piran trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market21 Sep 2026
Experience through the door at Pro Vercelli
Guto arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.